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Annual Review 2005/06- Trade & Trends Back to Contents
- Tonnage up by one percent
- Investment in infrastructure by terminals
- New tugs on Thames
- Safeguarding wharves
Cargoes
After a particularly strong year in 2004, the growth of trade through the Port of London slowed in 2005. However, total volumes were still up by one per cent to 53.8 million tonnes, and overall London remains one of the UK’s top three ports by volume.
The increase of 553,000 tonnes in 2005 was achieved despite a decline in some of the Port’s main commodities, including steel, vehicles, cement and chemicals. There was also a short-term drop in fuel imports due to a major investment project by BP at Coryton resulting in the temporary shutdown of part of the refinery.
Those falls were more than balanced by positive performances in sectors such as unitised traffic, which increased by two per cent with strong growth at Tilbury Container Services, the Port of Tilbury and CdMR Purfleet; aggregates, which were up by four per cent; and coal imports, which increased by nearly 500,000 tonnes in the year.
There were also higher volumes of other metals, cereals, vegetable oils and seeds, and forest products.
In addition, the volume of cargo carried within the port increased to 2.2 million tonnes.
Acquisitions and Consolidations
The year 2005 will be remembered for a series of high-profile acquisitions of shipping companies, which included Maersk taking over P&O Nedlloyd, TCS’s biggest customer; Hapag Lloyd taking over CP Ships; MOL taking over the SAECS services; and Samskip taking over Geest and Seawheel, both of which operate from Tilbury’s shortsea container terminal.
Moving into 2006, there was a further change, with ro-ro operator Cobelfret buying its rival on the Thames, Dart Line.
All of these take-overs directly involved Port of London customers – but in every case, the result has been the arrival of new services and/or increases in cargo, reaffirming the port’s strength and reputation.
London Gateway
In July 2005, nearly two years after the public inquiry closed, came the announcement from the UK Government that it was “minded to approve” the proposed £700 million London Gateway Port and logistics/business park at Shell Haven.
Although falling short of a clear-cut approval – the final go-ahead is subject to a number of conditions, mostly relating to road and rail – the PLA welcomed this positive step forward. We have been working closely with P&O Ports in a number of areas to progress the development, and continue to press the Government for full permission as early as possible.
The acquisition of P&O Ports by Dubai Ports World, completed in March 2006, has led to some delays in the development process, although a great deal of preparatory work has been done and continues, jointly with P&O Ports, particularly in respect of channel design and ro-ro berth simulations.
Once the Government’s planning conditions have been met, the London Gateway will play an essential part in meeting the need for more deepwater container berths in south east England, and has the potential to double tonnages through the Port of London within a few years.
With a total of 3 kilometres of water frontage when completed, the development on the former Shell Haven oil refinery site could make London the UK's biggest container port.
The port development and proposed logistics facility together represent an idea regeneration use of a brownfield site which will ensure that this important deepwater facility is not lost to port use.
Canvey LNG
Another major new facility for the Port of London took a step forward when plans were unveiled to develop a multi-million pound LNG terminal on Canvey Island.
The plans by Canvey LNG - a partnership of Centrica, Calor Gas, LNG Japan Corporation and Osaka Gas - envisage a terminal capable of distributing 5.4 billion cubic metres of gas a year, about five per cent of the UK's gas needs, and is one of a small number of proposed or planned regasification projects within the UK.
Costing between £150 and £200 million, the development is proposed for Calor's existing LPG site and the new terminal could be up and running by 2009, dependent on planning permission.
The development would include construction of two steel and pre-stressed concrete LNG storage tanks with a combined capacity of 240,000 cubic metres, as well as two new loading arms on the existing jetty, a regasification plant and an additional underground pipeline for gas transfer into the National Transmission System. New procedures agreed between the PLA and Medway Ports are in place for vessels carrying LNG to the Grain Terminal through PLA waters. This will stand us in good stead for the reintroduction of LNG trade to Canvey Island.
Enterprise Terminal
The Enterprise Terminal, a paper import and distribution facility at the Port of Tilbury, was opened in July 2005. Built at a cost of £34 million, as part of a longterm agreement between the Port of Tilbury and Stora Enso, the automated terminal is expected to handle 800,000 tonnes of paper and other products each year.
Although the start-up of the terminal was affected by the Finnish paper mill dispute, operations since then have settled down well.
The paper is currently being imported via a new service run by DFDS from Gothenburg into Tilbury and by the existing service operated by Finnlines, which will cease in July 2006, when the entire operation will be based on the use of the unique SECU (Stora Enso Container Unit).
Tilbury Container Services
Tilbury Container Services (TCS) handled a throughput of more than 420,000 teu in 2005, an increase of 11.5 per cent over 2004.
During the year under review, TCS purchased eight additional straddle carriers, built a new £2 million border inspection post and completed the conversion of its traditional blown-air reefer systems to integral reefer facilities.
Hamburg Sud’s River Plate Service returned to TCS in January 2005 after an absence of five years and CSAV’s Euro Andes Services started out of the terminal the following month.
Another new service was launched by X-Press Container Line, providing a weekly feeder link to Rotterdam and Le Havre.
There have been further new services early in 2006 – a weekly service by Maersk, which has followed up its acquisition of P&O Nedlloyd by consolidating its Australian cargoes through TCS, and also a new Australian service launched by Hamburg Sud.
Tilbury Power Station
Following an £11.5 million investment in extending its jetty, Tilbury Power Station handled 29 panamax shipments of coal during 2005, in addition to continuing deliveries by smaller vessels.
The ability to accommodate panamax ships allows RWE npower, owners of the power station, to receive much larger deliveries of coal direct from world markets, cutting out transhipment costs and reducing fuel costs overall.
As a result, there was a 25 per cent increase in coal imports over the jetty during the year.
BP Tugs
BP took delivery of three new ship handling tugs to service its Coryton refinery.
The ASD 3211 tugs, built by the Damen shipbuilding yard in the Netherlands, are 32.5 metres long with a bollard pull of nearly 67 tonnes. Managed and operated for BP by Targe Towing, they exclusively serve the Coryton jetties and offer towing, mooring, fire-fighting and pollution control functions.
Safeguarding
The PLA’s wharf reactivation policy is being championed by London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, and 2005 saw the process begin to bring three wharves back into operation.
Preferred operators were appointed for each of the wharves – Brett Aggregates at Hurlingham Wharf, Foster Yeoman at Orchard Wharf and Aggregate Industries/Cory Environmental at Peruvian Wharf – following a marketing exercise led by the PLA in partnership with the Greater London Authority and the London Development Agency.
In a report setting out measures to protect working Thames wharves and bring these three disused facilities back into working use, the Mayor concluded that extra wharf capacity is needed to handle predicted increases in riverborne freight and underlined his commitment to the safeguarding of wharves. In future, when a wharf on the Thames becomes vacant the reactivation process will take over.
The recommendations made by the PLA and the Mayor were accepted by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Formal planning directions have been issued to protect 25 wharves east of barrier for the first time, and 25 to the west remain safeguarded.
Cruising Capability
During the year a total of 52 cruise ships visited the Port – 33 calling at the London Cruise Terminal in Tilbury, and a further 19 at the central London cruise moorings.
In its first full season since its introduction, the PLA’s unique floating cruise terminal, ‘Welcome’ was used by 16 vessels, carrying in excess of 9,000 passengers.
Among those visiting central London was the super luxury ‘Deutschland’, for which a special night of celebrations was organised to mark the ship’s seventh birthday, including a themed fireworks display in front of Tower Bridge.
London is already a high-profile cruising destination and the announcement of the city’s success in winning the 2012 Olympic Games resulted in a flurry of enquiries regarding potential advance bookings for the central London cruise moorings – the first of these being received within 24 hours of the announcement.
To date, eight provisional bookings have been taken to accommodate cruise ships to act as floating hotels during the weeks of the full and paraplegic Olympic Games.
In preparing plans for 2012, PLA personnel visited the Port Authority of Piraeus in Greece to discuss its experiences during the Athens Olympics in 2004.
Promoting the Port
Consolidation within the global shipping industry saw many regular shipping lines trading to London change ownership or merge
with competitors. This brought about changes in the routes and worldwide destinations served from London – in most cases with a positive outcome for the Port.
Working alongside many of the independent terminal operators within the Port, the PLA continued to provide “umbrella marketing”, promoting the Port of London as a single entity.
Display stands promoting the services and facilities provided by terminals in the Port of London supported eight exhibitions in Europe and further afield, whilst representatives from the PLA presented papers at five seminars or conferences in the UK, Europe, Africa and the Far East.
The PLA sponsored a “Port of London” pavilion at the second Seatrade London International Maritime Convention held in Docklands, and we were honoured with a visit to our stand by the Princess Royal, who spoke with representatives
from the London Port community.
Strengthening the prospect of more riverborne freight into London, PLA staff assisted operators in pursuing the Freight Facility Grants on offer from the British Government to assist modal shift of cargo from road to water. Similarly, the PLA assisted operators in challenging European subsidies which discriminated against UK operations.
Working within the joint-marketing agreement between the PLA and the Port Authority of Algeciras Bay in Spain, work continued in developing services between the two ports as part of the EU-sponsored project ‘Motorways of the Sea’.
In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH), the PLA joined Associated British Ports (ABP) in hosting the Europe and Africa regional conference and the anniversary celebrations in London. HRH the Duke of York was the guest of honour at the reception at Somerset House.
All trade enquiries generated from our marketing activities are initially followed up by the PLA before they are handed over to the appropriate terminal or port service provider to complete the deal.
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